#JomPayung

Over the last few weeks, reports have been trickling in within the child protection community of children being orphaned (one or both parents having passed away) by the pandemic (or where the unaccompanied child’s parent(s) has been isolated at the hospital) and left at home without caregivers or left at the hospital. Concerned doctors who know of such children, have taken on the onerous duty of trying to locate next of kin where possible. Where the cases have come to the attention of NGOs, swift action has been taken, but it is clear that what we know is merely the tip of the iceberg. 

In a Straits Times report  dated 14th August 2021, the Minister in the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry stated that 33 children in Malaysia had lost their parents or guardians to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

These figures were contradicted by a Metro Harian report dated 24th August 2021 which reported that the Ministry of Education had said that figures between March and August this year revealed that 1517 children had been orphaned by the pandemic. Even with this revision, I doubt think that these figures reveal the true number of children who have been orphaned or the number of children in crisis because of the pandemic. 

Just think on it - to date, there are more than 13,000 Malaysians who have succumbed to COVID-19. Even if 30% of those Malaysians left  1 child (i.e. a person under the age of 18) behind, the numbers are shocking.

What is even more shocking is that there doesn't seem to be any protocol or standard operating procedure in place to handle and support these children. If we did - the Women's Minister would not have been contradicted within 10 days by the Education Ministry, because hello? Data collection would be the first and preliminary part of handling a crisis of any nature, and our ministries don't seem to have data that correlate to each other. 

Malaysia has been blessed thus far - we have no natural disasters, we are peace loving and our last actual crisis was the May 13th incident. This has led us to be complacent and ill prepared clearly. 

We are not the first country to be hard hit by the pandemic. We had lessons that we could have learnt from the Chinese, the Italians, the Spanish, the British and even the Indians. We no longer need to conduct a "lawatan sambil belajar" to learn about the experiences of other nations. We are now connectable instantly to all parts of the planet. Despite this and the one year respite that we had from the Covid-19 virus, we don't seem to be better prepared or equipped. 

We need to recognise that we are in a crisis. We need urgent measures taken to support and help vulnerable children who are orphaned or left in need of care and protection because of the pandemic. This needed to be done months ago. We need government agencies to reset their protocols and SOPs and understand that in a crisis, all and any help must be utilised and prioritised.

In a climate where even funerals cannot be observed by family members, these children have lost their parents and have probably not even been allowed to the funeral or seen their parents one last time. They stand in danger of losing everything that we know. If we do not step in, I foresee that some of these children stand in danger of exploitation, slavery, child labour and loss of inheritance and contact with family. It is a known fact for example, that Muslim siblings placed in care will be separated according to gender. 

I am working with a team of child protection experts on this and together we have identified the following matters which would need to be attended to (in varying degrees) on an urgent basis in each case:

(i) the child’s basic needs/food& day to day care;

(ii) housing/accommodation or safe temporary care and shelter including long term placement/alternative care arrangements including kinship care, foster care, community/ family based care or adoption for unaccompanied children and orphans;

(iii) funeral arrangements;

(iv) legal implications including inheritance issues;

(v) financial matters;

(vi) protection, especially against exploitation, abuse or child labour/slavery and neglect;

(viii) children with special needs;

(ix) continuing education; and

(x) mental health support especially grief counseling 

This is a very very long list. A lot of these things cannot be accomplished by individuals or NGOs without government support and authorisation.

This is not the time to have meetings where boundaries are not crossed. There is a child at this very moment who is all alone, and scared, and in tremendous grief. While you read this post. While we dither. While we worry about repurcussions and protocols, that child is there standing alone in the dark.

What shall we do about it?

I believe that I must be a candle in the darkness rather than curse the darkness in vain. 

Let me know if you're interested in helping.

Srividhya Ganapathy

26th August 2021

#JomPayung